The Internet is a worldwide decentralized network of computers having the ability to communicate with each other. Until fairly recently, the Internet was used mostly for communicating via electronic mail (e-mail), or for locating and transferring data through such services as "Gopher", "WAIS", "Archie", and "FTP." The programs for locating and transferring data typically utilized menus and other text-based interfaces.
The World Wide Web (hereinafter the "Web") was created in the early 1990's, and is comprised of many Internet sites (computers connected to the Internet) having hypertext documents or "Web pages" that can be accessed by users via a "browser" program (for example, Navigator.TM. and Mosaic). When viewed via a browser, a Web page typically displays text and color graphics, and can play sound, animation, and video clips. Through the Web, users can access the various Internet services, including Gopher, Telnet, and FTP.
Web pages, written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), contain hypertext links (usually highlighted keywords) that provide access to other web pages, even those on other Internet sites. When a user selects a particular hypertext link, the Web browser reads and interprets the address, called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) associated with the link and then connects the user's computer with the Internet site (computer) at that address. A URL gives the type of resource being accessed (e.g., Gopher, WAIS) and optionally the path of the file sought. For example: resource://host.domain/path /filename, wherein the resource can be "file", "http", "gopher", "WAIS", "news", or "telnet".
Therefore, to travel the Internet and view a particular file, a user must generally either know the URL for the Internet site and file he/she wishes to visit and enter it directly into the browser, or the user must activate a hypertext link to the Internet site and file provided in a Web page. Consequently, a major drawback of current Internet browsing software is that users are generally unable to "view" the Internet as one traveling around the world in an automobile or airplane would. The Internet is basically a "black box" that users can "reach in" and "pull" information out of, but cannot see in its entirety. Search engines are available for providing listings of Internet sites having certain common characteristics. However, traveling to any of the listed Internet sites generally requires activation of a link. The user is unable to see where he or she is going.
Another drawback of current Internet browsing software is the slowness or "lag time" that is often encountered when accessing an Internet site. When a user selects a particular Internet site, access is generally not instantaneous. Current technology employing HTML or Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) generally requires that complex graphical data be downloaded from an Internet site and then rendered on the user's computer. Consequently, a user must wait for the computer to download data from the Internet site; a process which can take anywhere from a few seconds to more than a few minutes. Lag time is caused by, among other things, the large size of images and graphics, and the low relative bandwidth of the Internet and most communications networks connected to the Internet.